Who Needs Austin? North By Northeast Is Closer, Cheaper...

[Jennifer Wright, Peter Feld, Krisanne Crabill]

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Unless you're Rex Sorgatz you do not need to go to Austin to watch Bill Murray make bad life choices – you’ve invariably already witnessed them firsthand in Brooklyn. And if you feel like you’ll be missing out because you won’t be able to watch young blonde creative types paw each other in mumblecore movies? Well, as GofG pointed out last week, you really only need make your way over the bathrooms of SoHo House and you can watch them in real life! So there’s no good reason to spend the plane fare to South by Southwest, except… well, what about the parties? Thank goodness that, for those of us on the East Coast, Nick McGlynn and Krisanne Crabill had that covered.

More story and photos below...Saturday night, they threw a smoking North by Northeast party at Mug Lounge. Literally as well as metaphorically smoking. That is to say, someone’s hair caught on fire, and we all learned a valuable lesson about not leaving uncovered candles around new media types.

Fortunately, Alice Hunt was around to extinguish the blaze leaving only the lingering odor of torched tresses behind. The rest of the crowd, which included and the devastatingly attractive John Carney of ClusterStock, the New York Times’ Brian Stelter, Democratic strategist Peter Feld and Popular Mechanic’s Seth Porges were too busy savoring the two for one drink specials to be overly bothered by the party’s new signature scent (Herbal Essences and fire).

Glynnis MacNicol from FishBowlNY was also there, right next to Nick, which always makes me feel as though the universe will implode, because that is a frequent occurrence when people with opposite sounding names meet. It didn’t though, and the only truly devastating event of the party was the realization that adorable Cosmopolitan writer Leonora Epstein will soon be abandoning New York for Paris. She’ll be missed in the North by Northeast and South by Southwest regions of the city.

And if it still doesn’t sound exciting enough for you? Don’t worry. I’m sure Bill Murray will be there for the next one.